Love isn't Tea
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: Set after A Wrench to the Heart - Julia is in love. Duo has to explain why love doesn't always work the way we want it to.


Camelot: Love isn't Tea

By Max

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing.

Duo's house wasn't a train station, even if the train stopped right in front of his three story, currently painted pale sky blue Victorian house. The front yard was big enough for a family soccer game, as long as one stayed out of the roses' reach. The roses did have reach too, as Duo had been quite drunk one week early in the colony's life and gotten angry at a construction worker who had neglectfully stepped on one. Now they were more benevolent rose whips that collectively called themselves Kuruma. Heero had argued, after needing medical care due to trying to trim them back, that their genes should be restored to traditional roses.

Roses he argued, should not share genetics with humans and boa constrictors to that degree. Duo put it to a vote. Kuruma voted that they prefered themselves as they were.

"Are you listening to me," Julia said, slapping a hand on the kitchen table.

The table was still long with picnic benches for seats, even though Duo only had two foster children in the house at the moment. His breath caught for a moment as she glared at him. Violet eyes shifting to the side as if he were going to find something really useful to say closer to the medical kit on the wall. The AI in said medical kit was having none of it and stayed out of the kitchen. "Uh, yeah," Duo said, both hands on his coffee cup as he smiled at Julia, whose face looked exactly like his, except her hair was bubble gum pink and hanging in two floor length pigtails, "I was just thinking."

"Well, why doesn't he love me," she asked, words twisted and fat as if heartbreak could swell both thoughts and tongues. "I'm clever and kind and I'd do anything for him!"

"Wull," Duo said, feeling a bit of headache start swirling around under his temples. His life was so much easier when all Julia wanted was to play My Little Pony games. "Love doesn't work like that. It's not," he said, pausing to take a drink of his now lukewarm coffee. "So like, when we set up a VR scenario, we can make the AI act anyway we want, but human beings are... different."

"Love is just chemicals. Why did you stop me from adjusting his chemicals," she whispered, angry and upset and lost. An absence of love is like the absence of air, with every cell of one's being crying out for what isn't there - leaving systems disrupted and water leaking from one's eyes. "He'd have been happier."

Duo sighed. "So a lot of processing in the human experience happens under the hood, as it were. You know the engine goes, but you can't really see how it's going while you're driving. So love is like when that spark goes off and ignites the fuel and the piston launches up. Something about him made your neurons spark and you had the right fuel and your engine is purring for him, but it's gotta have more than one cylinder to work, J-chan. Now you're great and cute and clever and sweet and there is a lot of fuel to you, but not all fuel works in all engines. Like you can't put diesel in a gas powered car. You can't put plutonium in a diesel. It just won't work."

She dropped her face to table, sobbing, her tea spilling out over the table and dripping to the floor. "But Papa loves you and I'm just like you."

"Julia, you look like me, but you and I are not the same. Still, your Jack wouldn't fuckin' love me. I'd annoy the crap out of him, don't you think?" Duo asked, doing his best to ignore the dripping tea.

She looked up, eyes red, pink lashes a dark salmon around violet eyes. "If I looked different would he love me? If I were shorter or had bigger breasts or maybe I need a vagina?"

Duo rubbed his forehead, nose wrinkling. "So some of that shit is like... about sexual attraction, but love happens no matter what you look like. Have you fucked him?"

Julia's eyes went wide, her soft pink lips parting.

Duo covered his face with both hands. Seeing his face on her experience was, at times, quite disturbing.

"I offered, but he didn't wanna," she said, sighing, her head flopping back down to the table. "He doesn't love me! I just wanna give him everything and adore him! I want to make him happy! I want to sing to him and write him poetry and live for him!"

"Julia, that's a shit ton of weight to put on someone else! Being responsible for someone else to that degree is scary as fuck."

"I'm broken!" She wailed, "No one will ever want me! I'm a burden! I'm horrible! I wanna die!"

Duo stared at his coffee for a moment, wishing like hell that half of it was whiskey. "You're over reacting like - like by insane amounts. Just because he doesn't love you today, doesn't mean he won't ever love you. Besides, you've only known him since the start of the semester. Six weeks is hardly like... known him all my life or some shit. People change. You change. He'll change. Even if he was mad as fuck for you today, maybe he wouldn't be in a month. It's best to enjoy what people offer and not like try to make them into potted plants."

"But... I want him to love me," she said, looking up again, lower lip quivering.

"Yeah, I get that," Duo said. "Humans evolved with many dynamics that are really splendid sometimes, but don't always feel great. You should try to think about things you like, about enjoying stuff you have so that this feeling will be smaller. That way you can enjoy any kindness he gives you without bringing harm to either of you."

"But you and Papa have ... love," she said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "And... I'm not really human, am I?"

"Your neurological patterning didn't start as human, but yer human now. Only humans get fuckin broken hearts. As for me and Heero, we have a potentially unhealthy enmeshment. We came from a background of trauma. It works for us. You should live healthier and enjoy the beauty of the universe."

"What if he never loves me," she said, fresh thick tears slipping down her face.

"Well, fuck him in the VR, never fucking tell him you did that, be nice and supportive to him, and find someone who likes you as you are, that you also really like," Duo bounced his hands opposite of each other, "Two cylinders firing together makes a hell of an engine, J-chan."

She sniffed, blinked more tears down her cheeks, and smiled weakly. "I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, J-chan," Duo said, smiling, proud of how far she'd come, even if she did wear his hair down to the floor and sakura pink sometimes.

"So you think someone will want me to love them," she asked, setting her tea cup upright.

"I don't know, but I know you can have a lot of fun and bring a lot of good to the world, whether someone loves you romantically or not."

"I was made as a pleasure doll on a casino colony, wasn't I?"

Duo's coffee volcanoed back up into his throat as his stomach turned inside out. He really would have rathered have a conversation on why it wasn't okay to fuck actual dogs. He pushed his stomach down and nodded. "Yes."

"But you took me away from there, brought me here," she said.

"Yes."

"Why? You weren't in love with me. You aren't sexually attracted to me."

Duo sighed, that headache whispering under his temples turning into the the rumbling arctic as long forgotten icebergs floated out into the open space. "I am not and have never been sexually attracted to you, Julia. Sex isn't the only reason someone loves someone else. I brought you here and raised you as my daughter because saw myself in you, because I care about you. Some of the things we do are those things that happen under the hood and they don't always have clear equations to explain them. There were thousands of other sex bots on that colony. I connected to you and brought you with me."

"Am I still just a sex bot," she whispered, "Is that why he doesn't love me? Because i'm... I'm disgusting?"

"Julia," Duo said, reaching across the table to take hold of her hand. "All life arises because of natural forces, What causes planets to form, mountains to rise, colonies to aggregate, people to write poetry... it's all the same natural forces. People have been shitty to life forms they thought were different than they are for as long as there have been people. People have killed each other over skin color and language and what myths they liked. If someone knew your origin, they might think you're disgusting, but there is nothing in you that would let them know that. You and I have exactly the same genes. You copied my body exactly, except for neuro patterns. You know, a couple thousand years ago, they used to burn homosexuals alive because they thought they were disgusting. That's where the word faggot comes from."

Her eyes were wide in horror. "Alive? Like.. just to start or ... or... they'd scream... they burned them to DEATH? Did you ever see it?"

"I ain't that old," Duo snapped. "My point is.. Be glad your cylinder fires and you got passion. Don't piss your time away on someone who doesn't want to be your other cylinder, find someone who does."

"Why is the world unfair? Why do I get to be human, but other sex bots just get recycled? That's not fair."

"Shit ain't fair," Duo said sadly, giving her hand a squeeze. "But as humans we can be aware of it and try to make things better for other intelligences."

"Will you ever not love Papa," she asked, watching him intensely.

"No," Duo said, "I will always love Heero. Always. A sizable part of my being, of my brain, is written to him. He is me, I am him. Do you want that with Jack?"

"No," she mumbled. "I just want him to smile at me and talk to me and maybe... You know."

"If someone wanted your attention, but you didn't want to give it and they bugged you, would you like them?"

"No," she said, grinding it out as she stared into her tea cup.

"Love isn't tea, J-chan. You can't make it when you wanted, make it as strong as you want, put the sugar you want, and spill it if it's in your way. Love is the force that builds mountains, the force of nature that builds life, and it does what it fuckin' will."

"Maybe I'll just make some more tea," she said, smiling better.

"Mop the floor while you're at it. I'll be in the garage."

"Thanks, Dad, for everything."

"My pleasure, chickie," he said, lovingly, before escaping to the pretty black Mustang he was trying to build from scratch.


End file.
